AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 19 / 136

Plate 19 of 136 · Great War · Single-seat fighter

Sopwith Dolphin

Sopwith 5F.1 Dolphin, painted as C3988, the only surviving Sopwith 5F.1 Dolphin: the single-seat fighter of 1917 with back-staggered two-bay wings that put the pilot’s head through the open centre section, giving him the best view of any fighter of its day, a geared 200 hp Hispano-Suiza V8 with radiators on the fuselage flanks, twin Vickers guns on the decking and a pair of Lewis guns on the centre section firing forward and upward; shown as restored by the RAF Museum from the remains of several Dolphins and displayed at Hendon: light grey metal cowling, forward fuselage and top decking, khaki-green PC10 fabric fuselage, fin and upper surfaces over clear-doped linen undersides, varnished spruce interplane struts, a roundel on each side of the fuselage close behind the radiators, blue, white and red rudder stripes and black ‘C3988’ on a white panel near the tail; the roundels on top of the upper wing and under the lower wing, which no photograph shows, follow RAF practice.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as C3988, the only surviving Sopwith 5F.1 Dolphin: the single-seat fighter of 1917 with back-staggered two-bay wings that put the pilot’s head through the open centre section, giving him the best view of any fighter of its day, a geared 200 hp Hispano-Suiza V8 with radiators on the fuselage flanks, twin Vickers guns on the decking and a pair of Lewis guns on the centre section firing forward and upward; shown as restored by the RAF Museum from the remains of several Dolphins and displayed at Hendon: light grey metal cowling, forward fuselage and top decking, khaki-green PC10 fabric fuselage, fin and upper surfaces over clear-doped linen undersides, varnished spruce interplane struts, a roundel on each side of the fuselage close behind the radiators, blue, white and red rudder stripes and black ‘C3988’ on a white panel near the tail; the roundels on top of the upper wing and under the lower wing, which no photograph shows, follow RAF practice. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (884 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Sopwith 5F.1 Dolphin modelled here.

History

The Dolphin

The Dolphin was designed at Kingston in the spring of 1917 by Herbert Smith, the designer of the Pup, Triplane and Camel, round the new geared 200 hp Hispano-Suiza V8. Its most unusual feature was back stagger: the lower wing was set further forward than the upper, and the upper wing was mounted low over the fuselage on an open centre-section frame. The pilot sat with his head through the gap, giving him a better view upwards and forwards than in any other fighter of the day. The first prototype flew in May 1917.

Pilots were at first uneasy about sitting so close to the top wing, fearing a broken neck if the aircraft turned over on landing, and some Dolphins were fitted with steel crash pylons over the cockpit. Once flown it was well liked: fast, strong and good at height. It carried two Vickers guns firing through the propeller and, as designed, two Lewis guns on the centre section firing forward and upward, though many pilots took these off. The geared Hispano-Suiza gave trouble at first, and spare engines were scarce.

Nos. 19, 23, 79 and 87 Squadrons flew Dolphins on the Western Front from early 1918 to the Armistice, and No. 141 Squadron used them for Home Defence. Sopwith, Hooper and Darracq built 2,072, with later Dolphin II and III versions planned with other Hispano-Suiza engines. The RAF retired them soon after the war, but ten Dolphins served with the Polish air force in the war against Soviet Russia in 1920.

This airframe

Dolphin C3988

C3988The airframe modelled

No complete Dolphin survived. The RAF Museum’s example was put together by its restoration staff from original parts of several Dolphins, with new structure where nothing survived, and it is the only Dolphin anywhere. It carries the serial C3988 and is displayed at Hendon. The model shows it as displayed there: light grey metal cowling, forward fuselage and top decking, khaki-green fabric fuselage, fin and upper surfaces, clear-doped undersides, varnished spruce struts, the radiators on the fuselage sides, twin Vickers guns on the decking and two Lewis guns on the centre section. No photograph shows the top of the upper wing or the underside of the lower wing, so the roundels there follow RAF practice, and the tail-down angle comes from the original drawings.

See it at Royal Air Force Museum London

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Dolphin in one UK collection. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 136 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.